Sunday, August 19, 2007

Recipe: Strawberry, Banana and Honey-roasted pecan

Hooley dooley, just how much stuff can you cram into a single ice cream concept?! Well, precisely this much:

300ml milk
300ml cream
3 eggs
~200g sugar
375g strawberries
3 ripe bananas
juice of half a lemon
~1/2 tsp nutmeg
~1 tsp vanilla essence
~1 cup pecans
~ 1/4 cup honey

1) Cut the green bits of your strawberries and crush them with a potato masher or similar.
2) Simmer the strawberry mash with 100g of the sugar and the lemon juice for a few minutes, until the sugar has dissolved.
3) Mash the bananas.
4) Make your custard with the eggs, milk, vanilla, nutmeg and the rest of the sugar.
5) Mix the custard, strawberry slop and banana slop together. You may want to put it in the blender at this point to achieve a smooth consistency.
6) Fold in the cream and refrigerate.
7) Roast your pecans for 5-10 minutes at 180C. Be careful they don't burn!
8) Transfer the pecans to a small pan with the honey, and simmer for a few minutes until the honey goes bubbly.
9) Transfer the nuts to a seperate plate or foil sheet to cool.
10) When your mixture is chilled, put it into the ice cream machine. When it starts to set, drop in the chopped honey-roasted nuts and give yourself a self-congratulatory pat on the back.

Verdict: Not bad at all. Personally, I found it a little sweet, but certainly the tasting public were full of praise, and in the end that's what counts. Enjoy.